Links to Start Your Week 4/7/14

Happy (end of) Monday! Or start of Tuesday. I hope you all survived a weekend without recommended reading from me and enjoy this latest edition of links to start your week.

Security

American-produced technology often provides the equipment used by repressive regimes to find and target dissidents. Updating our legislation dealing with export licenses for surveillance equipment could help mitigate the problem.

Washington has talked the talk on returning the CIA to its original mission of gathering and analyzing intelligence over running paramilitary operations around the world, but it has yet to walk the walk. Part of the problem is the drone program: the recent incident where a drone missile hit a Yemeni wedding party was conducted by the military and is being used to argue that CIA might be better able to conduct drone warfare successfully.

This is just a reminder that 155 men remain in prison in Guantanamo Bay, although many have been cleared for release. Over half are from Yemen, and that in and of itself is considered a legitimate reason for their continued detention.

Uganda’s infamous “kill the gays” law (which I believe is now just an “imprison the gays for life” bill, which only better because the bar is set so low) is just the most obvious example of how fringe anti-gay Christian extremists are working to influence anti-gay policies in Africa.

Europe

So fascism is apparently enjoying a resurgence in Europe, and broadening its appeal to women in particular, while also using them to make itself seem less extreme…I’ve read a number of articles on the appeal of fascist and other right-wing movements for blue collar men in particular, but not a lot on the appeal some may hold for women or the roles women play within them.

Latin America

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) created a text messaging based social network in Cuba with the aim of destabilizing the communist regime there. Politico looks at how they 1. Didn’t anticipate the costs of heavily subsidizing a social network for an indefinite period of time and 2. Just made it even easier for repressive regimes around the world to denounce dissidents who use social media to organize as tools of Western imperialism rather than legitimate activists with legitimate concerns.

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro plans to meet with members of the opposition to discuss the ongoing protests in the country.

And those vigilante self-defense organizations in Mexico that formed to fight the influence of drug cartels are now resisting government attempts to disarm them.